Wednesday 13 February 2008

Royal Albatross Colony











Dunedin is Celtic for Edinburgh and Yorkshire for Sheffield with albatrosses. Great place to live if you are a seabird needing overcast days and gusty breezes to get you out of bed in the morning.It has a chocolate factory as well that you can tour around and get chocolate fish for answering questions. Like being back in the production plants at Ford but without the chocolate fish.
Watched loads of albatrosses taking off, landing and feeding their young. They only produce one chick and they're fat things weighing up to 9kg before the parents start putting them on a strict diet to encourage them to fish for themselves. Good job they don't learn to drink beer or they would never do anything. They then spend up to 6 years at sea - literally before returning to mate. The babies that left in Septemer have been tagged and have made it to Chile already. It normally takes adults 8 days but took the youngsters over 30 days. Must have found the beer after all..

Good things
Huge albatrosses - 3m in wingspan, can eat up to 2kg in 15 minutes- babies weigh up to 9kg before flying
Chocolate fish - Only in NZ apparently

Bad things
I have a cold
Can't find the fish and chip shop

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